Mary stared at the image of the Echo on the wall screen, her railguns at the ready. “Dad, please understand. I can’t come back, Daddy, no matter how much I want to. I—I can’t do it.”
Then Kate chimed in. “And I won’t abandon her here, Jim, you know that.”
The pause was deafening. Finally, Atteberry responded. “Kate, please. I’m begging you. Bring my Mares home. What is more important than being together, the three of us? Please…”
Kate choked back the burning lump forming in her throat. It sounded like Jim offered her a chance for them to be a family, however that’s defined. And, healed, she’d be able to support him and Mary in all ways. By working and living and, yes, loving together, she knew they could accomplish great things.
She watched Mary stand tall, empowered by conviction that she was doing the right thing, the necessary thing, taking the appropriate logical course of action to save them all from themselves.
Kate smiled at her, and she nodded. “I’m sorry, Jim. As painful as this is to say, we can’t leave this ship.”
A moment later, the port side battery of railguns glowed red in the horrific grey-orange light of the Moon’s limb. Mary gasped. The guns chuffed once, and before the shot even registered in her brain, the alien vessel rocked with the massive impact of that energy burst, sending it hurtling across Luna’s surface. Kate lost her balance, and the shock flung her hard against the transfer platform. Her head smashed into a corner of the table, and blood poured out of her nose and ears. Her vision blurred and high-pitched ringing in her ears blocked all other noises. Mary slumped against the far wall, unmoving.
Kate spat blood and bile from her mouth and struggled to maintain consciousness. On the screen, she saw grainy images of the Echo’s railguns preparing another salvo.
FORTY-SIX
Kate
Kate staggered back up to the wall screen. A gaping distance had opened between them and the Echo as the railgun blasts had sent the ship flying. Keechik maintained its post at the command console, knobby limbs flashing in and out of the control input ports. She wiped the blood off her face with her sleeve.
The creature’s amber eyes met hers. “I am Kate . . . must leave now . . . mm . . . the one Keechik and the friend Mary . . . the holder . . must go . . .”
Kate felt a sharp pain in her side and her head pounded from being concussed. Surprising to her, she had no desire any more to hide and scar herself. That burden had disappeared. “You know I—I can’t abandon her. I won’t.” She knelt beside Mary and checked her breathing. “You’re right, though. Another blast from those rail guns and we’re finished.” She turned toward the alien. “Let her go, and I’ll leave with her. Then you can take off to safety and be done with these assholes.”
“No, I am Kate . . . the friend must come with . . . mm . . . with me.”
Suddenly, a flash of light erupted on the wall screen, pulling Kate’s attention from Keechik. In an instant, the ship tumbled and spun across the lunar terrain again, yet despite the Echo’s aggression, the alien vessel refused to crumble under the force of all that power. When it finally came to rest in the dust, the gap between the two vessels had widened even more. Kate lay prone on the floor. Something had pierced her leg, and the burn tore through her body. Mary, dazed, sat in a heap behind the platform table. She mouthed words, but none emerged.
Keechik’s dark moaning grew from the depths of shadows covering his command station. It was the same lonesome song she heard from the creature earlier, and it carried with it a depth of pain the likes of which Kate could not comprehend.
“Alien vessel, this is the Echo.” Carter’s voice boomed in cheerfully. “Braddock, are you there?”
She raised herself into a sitting position and stared at the wall screen. “I’m here. Stop firing on us, you asshole.”
“I will not. But it’s your lucky day, because despite my personal wishes, there are some on board who would like to see you live. So, I’ll give you another chance—your final one—to abandon that ship and return to the Echo, no harm no foul. Those first two shots were near misses, Braddock. The next one won’t be.”
Kate drew in a deep breath and frowned. She peered over at Keechik who stood quietly at the command station, watching her with wide eyes. Its mouth, drawn tight, held what she could only describe as a kind of defiant dignity engulfed in an overwhelming sense of loneliness. As she stared at the creature, she spoke. “We can’t leave this ship, Carter. Our deaths will be on you.”
The radio crackled. “Ha, you sound like the mewling professor, all self-righteous and moralistic.” He paused. “But I’m a practical man, Braddock. I look at what I can do to benefit all humankind, and I’m prepared to make sacrifices for the greater good. Mineral extraction and processing pay for global infrastructure, education, health care. Now you may not like the idea of carving holes in moons and planets and using what God Himself gave us to use, but I see my work very much as a social good for all. That’s why I want what’s in that ship. I want that faster than light technology. I want to know the composition of that ship’s hull that can withstand a Jennings laser cutter’s full beam. And I want whatever else you have in there that will improve our place in the universe.”
Kate placed a hand on her stomach, then over her chest. Keechik’s ability to heal her physically was material manipulation on an atomic level. History was replete with stories about healers who performed wonders with a touch or a word. Was it possible these creatures had some deeper understanding of physics and nature than the rest of us? A vile image arose in her mind of this fragile alien, caged in a corporate facility, being forced to heal all the broken humans with the means to pay for such a service. Yet, if cancers could be eliminated rather than treated, and mental illness healed instead of bandaged up in platitudes, that truly would benefit all.
Carter continued. “I think the problem with you Spacers, Braddock, is that you’re so task-oriented, you never see the big picture. Run a survey here. Fix an algorithm there . . . just task after task after task. No vision at all.”
Keechik, as if sensing Kate’s evolving thoughts, scrabbled alongside her, peering up at her face with large, soft eyes. “No . . . I am Kate . . . no . . .”
“But never mind. If you won’t leave that bucket and return to the Echo, I’ll eliminate the obstacle and simply take what I want.”
“Murderer!” Kate yelled.
“Emancipator, actually.”
Mary stirred in the corner. Kate rushed to her side and helped her up. The blast had bruised her face, but otherwise she was unhurt and Kate brought her back to the wall screen where Keechik rested on his thin limbs. The creature gazed at Mary, then at Kate. It wore an expression of resignation on its face.
Like a human being.
When Keechik spoke, its voice was raspy and guttural, almost a whisper. “I am Kate . . . the one Keechik feels . . . small . . . but you and . . . the friend Mary . . . you must leave . . . return to your kind . . . mm . . .”
Mary shook her head groggily. “No, it’s too dangerous. When they discover I’m a holder of your knowledge, they’ll rip me apart.”
The creature moaned long and soft. “You . . . must . . . hide your knowledge from all, friend Mary . . . mm . . . but you and I am Kate must go . . . must go now . . .” Keechik stared up at them, blinking its amber eyes repeatedly. “The one Keechik . . . is broken . . . will find . . . another.”
“Another what?” Kate asked.
“Mm . . . another companion . . .”
Carter’s voice boomed on the radio. “Last chance, Braddock.”
“Stand by, Echo.” She envisioned a suddenly plausible future, on Earth, with Mary and Jim, living free and healthy, teaching other Marys and exploring the night skies together. The idea, the promise of it, tingled throughout her body.
What I want.
She gripped Mary’s arms. “What do you think? Could you keep your knowledge away from everyone else?”
Mary slouched and th
ought it through. “I don’t know. If anyone found out or suspected . . .”
“I can help. You, me and Jim . . . let’s work together to keep it hidden. We’d make it our . . .” she narrowed her gaze and smiled, “ . . . our primary directive.”
Mary’s eyes welled up, and she hugged Kate tightly. Keechik slunk back to its shadows.
“Echo, alien vessel. Braddock here. We’re coming out.”
Keechik poked one of its limbs in an input port, and a section of the wall slid open, revealing their two envirosuits. Kate helped Mary get into hers, then pulled hers on except for the helmet. She looked at the creature, slumped in the shadows.
“Where’s the, er, access port?”
“Mm . . . no port, I am Kate . . . mm . . . dimensional phase shift. I release you . . . one by one . . .”
The soft moans from the creature’s corner worried Kate. “Maybe you’ll find a friend Keechik, another companion soon. At least your history is safe.”
Keechik averted its gaze. “The one Keechik . . . is . . . broken now . . . I am Kate . . . broken . . . small . . .”
“Alien vessel, your time’s up.”
“Stand by. Mary’s coming out first, then I’ll follow. Braddock out.” She gave Mary’s suit a final check, then nodded at her and stepped back. Keechik moved its limb in the command console and Mary blinked away. In an instant, she appeared outside the ship’s hull. She looked around, then bounded slowly, carefully, toward the Echo. A lone figure beside the Echo’s access ramp raced across the moonscape to meet her.
Jim.
Kate turned to look at the alien. “Keechik, is your ship able to fly?” The creature raised its head slowly, its face covered in a pain that filled the room, and Kate, empathizing with it, knelt down. “Can you fly?”
“Yes, I am Kate . . . mm . . . I can leave now . . . mm . . .”
She understood what it meant to be completely isolated, alone and afraid. The years she spent on Luna before Mary came—hell, even before she arrived—were torture. But she couldn’t take Keechik with her to Earth.
Still, abandoning this creature would be . . .
She gazed at the wall screen. Jim and Mary embraced like forsaken echoes in the grey and orange darkness. The remaining two astronauts walked out and joined the reunion, quickly embracing them. Above the Echo and over the horizon, Earth glowed a bright blue, calling her home like a sailor’s candle in a window.
Kate smiled and knew a deep, resting peace that she’d never experienced before. She set her helmet down on the ship’s floor, then unlocked the seals of her envirosuit.
“Let’s go see.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
David Allan Hamilton is a writer, teacher, and publisher living in Ottawa, Ontario. He has edited and published numerous collections of stories from writers attending the Ottawa Writing Workshops since 2017, through DeeBee Books.
David has enjoyed a career with the Federal Public Service and has been a contract instructor at Carleton University. He holds a B.Sc. (Honours) degree in Applied Physics from Laurentian University and a M.Sc. in Geophysics from the University of Western Ontario and has undertaken literary studies at the University of Sheffield. His own stories often combine his love of the natural world and the possibilities of science fiction. His first novel, The Crying of Ross 128, was published in 2018. This is his second book in that trilogy.
You may wish to contact or follow David at the following:
[email protected]
davidallanhamilton.com
deebeebooks.com
ottawawritingworkshops.com
Twitter: @DAHamilton
Instagram: Davidhamilton1261
Facebook.com/ottawawritingworkshops
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank my family for their ongoing support during the writing process. Your encouragement means the world. Also, I have benefitted greatly during the creation of this novel from the writers in the Ottawa Writing Workshops, in particular: Heather Gray, Debbie Bhangoo, Frank Kitching, Mike Marshall, Glen Packman, and Nick Forster. Your early feedback and suggestions helped me immensely.
Thanks for reading! Please add a short review on Amazon and let me know what you thought!
Echoes In The Grey Page 37
